Meditation
by emmaliefje
Summary: What starts as a stupid exercise in Spanish class pulls Santana into a dream where she sees, meets, and experiences more than she bargained for. Oneshot.


**Title: **Meditation  
**Author: **emmaliefje  
**Pairings: **Brittany/Santana**  
Spoilers: **None. **  
Summary:** What starts as a stupid exercise in Spanish class pulls Santana into a dream where she sees, meets, and experiences more than she bargained for. Oneshot.  
**Rating: **Pg-13  
**Disclaimer: **I own nothing. If I did, Glee might just become The Brittana Show. Also, the song lyrics are from Norah Jones's _Come Away With Me, _and not my own creation.  
**A/N:** This is one of my original stories (on fictionpress, username Slightly Ajar) Glee-fied/Brittana-fied. I realized it fit, and thought it might be a nice adaptation.

* * *

_Meditating. What's the point? This is fucking Spanish,_ Santana thinks, rolling her eyes pointedly at Brittany across the room. Everyone else stares at Mr. Shue in fake, rapt attention. Puck's picking his nose, flicking the morsels at Rachel's back. Kurt is texting under the table, and Quinn is nearly falling asleep in her chair. Mr. Shue doesn't even notice. _Oh, well. Better this than "Hola, me llamo Santana y me voy a morir de aburrimiento."_

"Okay, everyone, sit up straight, put your hands flat on the table, and close your eyes," Mr. Shue says excitedly. For a moment, Santana feels the urge to keep her eyes wide open, but she complies with a small huff of annoyance. _Meditation. A student's foolproof way of secretly taking a nap._

"You're in a dark room, alone. Only your own eyes are watching you." Mr. Shue's voice drones through her ears like a lullaby. She wonders how he expects anyone to stay awake if he keeps on like this. "You see a tiny, delicate archway of light. It isn't a doorway, or a portal, but you feel drawn to it. You reach it, and you're at the top of a stairway."

Strangely, she's there. She feels her own, slow breathing, and her palms pressed flat against the cold desk. The stairs in front of her are dark wood, with a broken railing, steep and ancient. It reminds her of a haunted house, and goosebumps rise on her skin.

"There are 10 steps." Two unwanted slabs of wood fade from her mind. "Each number I say, you take a slow, unrushed breath and a step. There is a door at the bottom, and you want to reach it. Now…" He pauses, but everyone is still, waiting at the top of a stairway. "Ten." Breathe in. Step. Breathe out. "Nine." Breathe in. Step. Breathe out. "Eight." Breath in. Step. Breathe… His voice is fading. Santana hears it behind her, like the shell of the body she left behind at the top of the stairs. She _feels _the numbers more than she hears them, and suddenly she's at the bottom. The desk has faded from beneath her hands, as has her chair and the classroom, and she's finally alone. Her hand rests on a brass handle, and a beam of white light shines through the keyhole. As she wonders what could be behind the door, a whisper echoes through the hall.

"Imagine a place of peace and light beyond this door, and it will be there. Think of anything before you enter, and you will have it. Think of a person you want to spend 10 uninterrupted minutes with, and they will be there. The door knows what you want, even if you do not." The voice pauses. Santana leaves her mind blank, but scattered images still play across her vision. "Now, open the door."

She pushes the handle. As soon as the light spills into the dark, sullen hallway, the room disappears, dissolving like the stars in sunlight. She looks around her.

A field of tall yellow wheat stretches as far as the eye can see, from horizon to horizon. She looks up at the clear sky, squinting at the light, and sees a flock of blackbirds fly across the gigantic, impossible daylight moon, challenging the sun with its presence. The horizon is only broken by the silhouette of a gnarled, wind-bent tree whose green leaves provide a small spot of shade from the comfortable sun beating on her skin. The grass, bent with seeds at the tops, tickles her skin beneath her skirt as she makes her way towards the tree, and it's many steps before she lifts her smiling face from her hand running across the soft wheat and realizes she is not alone. She takes in the sight before her, and smiles at what she sees:

The girl's eyelids flutter with a dream, and the fingers of her free hand stir in her fantasy. Her blond curls bound over her shoulders, and a lock is caught on the bark of the tree, waving feebly in the wind. She sleeps with her back to it, clad in a loose, white summer dress, her fingers between the pages of a book and a soft smile gracing her lips.

Santana smiles down at the sleeping beauty.

"Brittany," she whispers.

Her best friend stirs before her, looking around her in a familiar, sleepily disoriented way. She notices who's standing above her, and beams. Santana feels a rush of affection and… something else, but she ignores it, smiling back at her best friend's presence. She sticks out her hand, and says kindly, "Morning, sleepyhead."

Laying the book on the ground, Brittany reaches up and grips her outstretched hand. _She's really here, _Santana thinks when she feel her skin against her own, and marvels.

"What are you doing here?" Brittany asks. Santana tugs on her hand to help her up, but as Brittany is lifted off the ground, the brunette misjudges her sleep-laden weight and loses her balance. She stumbles forward and falls against Brittany, pinning her against the tree just as she is pulled up.

Santana pauses. She imagines that time must be as strange here as her surroundings, because in a moment, she's aware of everything. She feels how Brittany's body is pressed against her own; how her slender fingers feel in hers; how the blonde's free hand is traveling silently up her arm to steady her, her nails leaving thin tracks of fire; how her soft, honey-tinged breath caresses Santana's face with moisture; how her lips purse and break out in a smile. The moment passes, but Santana is still caught in the remnants of it, and doesn't move.

"Up against a tree, huh?" Brittany giggles playfully. Her face is only inches from Santana's, and suddenly she can't resist. Santana kisses her smile from her lips. Only a few seconds pass, but her hand finds a way out of Brittany's soft grip and to the back of her neck, while the other laces around her waist. Santana can't help herself. She's lost with her, and Brittany is kissing her back.

Her ears thud with her beating pulse as Santana kisses her best friend in the shade of the lonely tree, and the wind, waving the field in patterns of the sun, brings pieces of a song she knows… And then another sound joins it. It is faint, at first, peaceful but stubborn. _Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. _The words echo through her ears insistently, and she can't shut her mind to it. _Feel her lips on yours,_ she thinks. _Don't let go. Don't let go. _

She feels her fingers find flat, smooth wood. Brittany's neck has disappeared from beneath her fingers, and her lips fade, leaving Santana's enflamed with memories. She's back, staring at the door. Her hand is on the handle, and her heart beats a staccato rhythm against her ribs as she pushes it. _Bring me back, let me back,_ she begs. _Brittany… _

The door opens and Santana's eyes flutter open to reality. Mr. Shue sits in front of the class, arms crossed and a smug smile on his face. "It looks like it worked for most of you." He glances at Santana, and smiles knowingly. "Santana, you look flushed."

Her hands tremble against the table. Her breathing's still ragged, and she briefly wonders if her lips are as red and sore with delight as her face seems to feel. She gapes for a second, but snaps out of it and finds her voice. "Whatever. I'm just that hot." The class utters a small collective laugh of agreement, their eyes still in their own worlds. Santana looks down at the tabletop, her mind reeling. After a few seconds, she refocuses, and Brittany turns in her chair with a smile. Santana catches her gaze and quickly looks away.

Mr. Shue gets up. "You're dismissed. The bell rang a minute ago." Santana glances at the clock. Half an hour had gone by. Shocked faces around her match her own expression.

A symphony of chairs scraped across the linoleum vibrates through her ears, so different from another sound: that song she heard… _I want to walk with you on a cloudy day… in fields where the yellow grass grows knee-high_. In a daze, she's halfway through the hall before Brittany catches up to her.

"Morning, sleepyhead. Are you still in your dream?" she banters, as they used to, the banter between best friends and nothing more. But everything has changed. Her smile reminds Santana of the way she kissed her back, and she turns away.

"Yeah," she mumbles. _I wish._

"Me too. Did you meet anyone in yours?"

_Did I, indeed. _She looks into Brittany's smiling, innocent face and lets her dream die. The confused turmoil within her doesn't die with it. She whispers the lie. "No. No one."


End file.
